Microsoft and European Union are Revising Settlement in Internet Browser Case
// December 3rd, 2009 // Comments // Technology
Microsoft Corporation have revised an antitrust settlement made with European Union regulators, after internet browser competitors complained that the agreement gave Microsoft an unfair advantage.
These amendments may be settled and agreed upon as early as December 15th. The particulars of the redrafting, sought by Microsoft’s Internet Browser competition aims to refine how consumers choose between Internet browsers on Microsoft’s Windows operating systems. These details have been provided by people familiar with the case, but have chosen to remain anonymous as the terms of the settlement aren’t public.
Microsoft, previously having been fined £1.52 billion pounds ($2.53 billion) in previous EU antitrust cases, began offering consumers a choice of browsers to end the probe into whether the company illegally tied its Internet Explorer browser to Windows.
According to Bloomberg reporter, Matthew Newman, Philip Lowe, director general of the commission’s competition department, said in an interview yesterday in Brussels, “We’ve concluded our discussions with Microsoft. We have addressed the issues raised in the market test and we think we now have the basis for quite a robust remedy.”
Jesse Verstraete, a Microsoft spokesman in Brussels, declined to make any comments.
Under the modified settlement, computer users with Windows will see a “ballot screen” that randomly lists the top five Internet browsers that compete with Internet Explorer, the people said. Users would then have a choice of clicking on their preferred browser’s icon and the program would be downloaded from the Internet.
Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker, agreed to changes in the ballot screen following complaints from Opera, Google Inc., and Mozilla Corp., maker of the Firefox browser, according to the people close to the case.
Opera’s Chief Technology Officer Hakon Wium Lie said last month that the ballot screen shouldn’t run inside Internet Explorer. Microsoft has agreed to have the screen appear in a Web-page format, the people said.
Opera also wanted the ballot screen to list the top five browsers randomly rather than in alphabetical order. Microsoft has accepted that demand.
The question that remains is if this is how Microsoft will be offering its operating system from now on, what happens if the users are behind a user authentication page, will it allow them to authenticate prior or after to offering the ballot screen to make a browser selection, or will it cause problems?
